Posted in Philosophy of EducationStudentsTeaching on Oct 20, 2009 - 01:14 AM
I'm 5'2" and about 105 lbs. I'm small--so walking through the hallways of the new school in which I just got a teaching position, I get mistaken all the time as a student, by students and teachers alike. This gives my students the impression that I'm a pushover, and staff the idea that I won't last in this school past a couple of months. But what my misleading physique grants me is a world into the daily feelings of my students inside a building they will spend four of their formative years in--if they make it through four."Hey! Where's your pass?"
"Where are you going? Get to class!"
"Who let you in this copy room?"
"Get to the back of the line!"
All of these are greetings given to me by adults in the building who mistook me for a student. No smiles. No hellos. Just a growing list of blunt, direct questions and demands that offered the receiver no real opportunity to respond. Perpetual rhetorical questions that seemed to eat away at who I am as an individual. These questions were blanket questions that many adults in the building methodically doled out at the mere sight of one of "them"--the students.
This window into the interactions my students had every day with adults in this building made me question the words of wisdom given to me as a new teacher:
"You've got to be tough on these kids. They don't know how to behave otherwise."
"You know, I don't even let them out of their seats without my permission. That's how I keep them under control."
"These kids are different. You'll see what we mean. Just make sure to put your mean face on."
"The secret is, you can't give them any room to do what they want--always make sure you've got a full hour's worth of activities. Otherwise, you'll lose control."
Blame was being shifted on the kids. And true, from what I had seen, the students in this building did have a jaded edge to them. They did take any opportunity to take lessons off track instead of choosing to focus on their studies. But I really had to ask, what came first? The jaded kids or the jaded adults? What sort of schooling was happening in classrooms centered on getting control?
I observed all of this before I ever stepped into my new classroom and started my first lesson.
Tags for this entry:
k-12 education,
control,
youth-adult relationships,
behavior and consequences,
authority,
questioning
Comments
Nov 21, 2009 - 02:33 PM
Very interesting to put out that perspective, from the students. I am sure they sense this and it is why they are so quick to be defensive. When I was teaching 8th grade, I would find after giving a redirective or asking a student to simply “sit down” they would reply with “You don’t have to get smart!”. I got SO MUCH attitude, and I was even more shocked to see how some of the teachers barked at the students. They were operating under the same idea, “you are not tough enough” “no these kids are different” and “they do not respond unless you yell”. It took awhile for my students to realize that I was not out to get them, but actually there to help them! They were really tough at first, and I cried a lot when I got home! but by the end of the school year, there were genuine tears from my students about leaving my classroom (moving on to the highschool). Are you in Detroit Public Schools?
Melia Dicker
Nov 05, 2009 - 02:09 AM
It’s fascinating that you’ve gotten to experience the disempowering aspects of school life from a student’s perspective. Isn’t it amazing how teachers can soften their tone of voice immediately when they find out you’re one of them?
When I was leading an after-school program for middle school students, my co-director and I would lug beanbags into the classrooms to make them more cozy for the kids. One teacher cautioned us, “If you let them sit on beanbags, you’ll lose control of them forever.” We wondered, “Did we ever have control to begin with? Would we even want it?”
I hope that students and teachers can find more ways to be collaborators in schools instead of adversaries.